Diamonds and Pearls
by Melee
Summary: RyoxKeisuke, aka the infamous boyfriend from "Persuasion." Part two of this plotless wonder involves Ryo and fire and accidentally-summoned demons.
1. Diamonds and Pearls

A disclaimer: Ronin Warriors is not mine, but they have my love.  
A warning: Here be boy love.

A note: This is Ryo/Keisuke(OC). Keisuke is Ryo's infamous boyfriend from my story "Persuasion," but you don't need to read one to understand the other.

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Diamond and Pearls

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Keisuke tilted his head back a little, back straight. He blew out the smoke slowly, cigarette held negligently between two long fingers at the end of the arm resting over his knee.

Ryo lay back on the bed and watched Keisuke's delicate pose through half-closed eyes. It reminded him of Sage a little, the grace, except that compared to Halo, Keisuke was always forced, and Sage didn't smoke. Also, Keisuke's hair was more of a dirty, sandy color, the strands thicker and not so soft.

"Did you still want to see that movie, Ry?" Keisuke raised the cigarette back to his lips, crawled on all fours across the big bedspread to where Ryo sprawled across the foot, sideways. Keisuke had a thing about nicknames; felt it was real solid proof of intimacy. Ryo hadn't thought his name could really get shorter.

Then Keisuke was leaning in to kiss him. A flick of his tongue sent the cigarette to the side of his mouth, sticking far out to the side so he could actually get away with kissing Ryo's cheek and smoking at the same time.

Too bad Ryo was horrible with smoke and thought it was disgusting anyway. Not that it stopped Keisuke. Keisuke had weird ideas about what looked cool taken entirely from blockbuster movies and primetime television. Ryo had caught him practicing poses with unlit cigarettes in the bathroom mirror.

Keisuke pulled back, exhaling smoke, and Ryo started coughing in loud, paralyzing shudders like he always did when Keisuke came near him with his cigarettes. Reached up to grab the small white stick of tobacco from Keisuke's mouth and threw it blindly away.

He didn't normally do that, this being Keisuke's house and what Keisuke did here seemed to him to be mostly Keisuke's business. But sometimes...

Keisuke watched it arc away onto the carpeting with a vague sort of horror. "Fuck." He lost his focus on Ryo, rolling over to sit, leaning back on his arms, hands behind him on the bed. "Are you trying to burn down my fucking house?"

"Won't burn," Ryo said moodily. Keisuke frowned at the utter certainty in Ryo's voice, levered himself off the bed, saying nothing.

Closet doors were thrown open. Keisuke disappeared. He came out with a box, sizeable, bigger than a bread box anyway, and then he was rooting through it on the bed.

"Found this stuff the other day." Scarves and musty clothing spread out on the floor until Keisuke pulled out a pale silk bag. Obviously jewelry inside. And then another box, small and velvet.

Out of this box came a diamond ring. Huge, gaudy, innumerable small stones atop tarnished metal. "Will you look at that?"

Ryo made a face.

"My grandparents had a lot of taste, eh? They were also rich. Can you tell?"

"And that?" Ryo touched the silk bag.

"You don't like the ring, don't want to try it on?" Keisuke teased. Ryo ignored him. Keisuke pulled more silk out of the bag, unrolled it to show the longest string of pearls Ryo had ever seen. They were small and a little irregular.

"Irregular means they're real," Keisuke said, like he knew what Ryo was thinking. "Small means they weren't as expensive as they could have been." Then, with a smirking grin, he threw it, catching Ryo's neck like a lasso.

Ryo put a hand up and froze because he wanted to pull it off but was terrified he'd break it. Keisuke was on the bed again, coming forward to trail a hand down the pearls lying against Ryo's chest and his black shirt. "My grandmother's... she had a lot of nice things. My mother doesn't like any of them though." Keisuke found a clasp, undid it and started looping it again and again around Ryo's neck.

"Keisuke, don't..." Ryo was aghast a little at the disregard for such a thing, something ancestral that cost so much and had been passed down from mother to daughter... Ryo had been brought up to treat that sort of thing with religious respect.

Which, of course, meant Keisuke thought of it as a great toy for mucking with Ryo's sensibilities. Meaning sex.

"Don't? No... You're so dark, it's beautiful." The blond finished, disappointed that the pearls didn't go around another time, leaving most of the loops choker-tight while one hung down too loose. Keisuke pushed Ryo down into the bed, leaned over him appreciatively. Ryo let him do it, upset.

"Your neck is too thin, eh? Kind a snap-able, Ry." Keisuke was laughing a little, putting an experimental hand around Ryo's neck, palm resting over his windpipe and the antique pearls.

Not unexpected. Keisuke had a thing about violence. Not for-real violence, he didn't have the stomach for it, though Keisuke had never been in a situation to discover that. Ryo just could tell. Had gotten pretty good at judging these things in the course of his experience.

Keisuke's hand trailed down to tug on the lowest, wider loop of the pearl necklace, and the heirloom tightened around Ryo's neck. He smiled, a cruel tease, expression lazy but eyes excited. No, not for-real violence. Imaginary, just enough to make sex seem dangerous.

Ryo tilted his head back, let his eyes fall shut under black lashes, and Keisuke leaned down to put his lips on the skin just under Ryo's jaw, fingers still hooked in the string of pearls. His other hand found Ryo's left wrist, grabbed it, forced it against the mattress, like he was holding Ryo down.

Ryo tended not to like that so much, but it would take a little longer before he pressed the issue. Ryo usually let Keisuke have his way with foreplay, the blonde having poor habits of wretched pouting when he didn't get his way in bed.

But it seemed today Keisuke had another objective. Fingers entwined with Ryo's, holding something cold and a little sharp that went around his finger. The ring finger. It was heavy.

"What? Keisuke – " Turned to see the gaudy ring on his finger now, like a farce of an engagement ring. It didn't quite fit. He wondered how he'd get it off.

"It's too bad," Keisuke mused, "but I think you'd notice if I tried to slip on the skirt."

Ryo glared. "_No._"

"No?" Keisuke pouted. "Didn't you ever play around with any of that stuff as a kid? You know, try to figure just how gay _were_ you."

Ryo blinked up at him, irritation muted a little in confusion. "No... did you?"

Keisuke seemed to lose interest in the whole thing, lying on the bed half on top of Ryo, one leg thrown over the smaller man and head turned so that he was breathing lightly against Ryo's face with his smoker's breath. "My family wasn't so into sex-education beyond tab A goes into slot B and the evils of masturbation. The stories I got about people like me were kind of... freakish."

"Oh," Ryo said.

"Though my brother was kind enough to tell me where Dad kept his pornography," Keisuke added thoughtfully, running his hand through Ryo's hair. "Didn't like any of it. Too _heterosexual_. Was really very disappointed."

Ryo laughed.

Abruptly Keisuke sat up, going over to rummage through the drawers of the old mahogany vanity against the wall. Most of the rest of the room was beige. Ryo looked it over again, spending more thought on it than he had at first. "Keisuke... this isn't your parents' room is it?" He was suddenly self-conscious.

"Neh. But... we could go in there if you want?" Keisuke was glancing back, an almost feral grin on his face. Ryo didn't want him to be so taken with the idea.

"No. No, I don't want to – what? What are those?"

Keisuke walked back to the bed hands closed around something, several somethings actually. "I promise they won't be back until Sunday and we could wash the sheets..."

Ryo tugged at Keisuke's hands, vaguely anxious, now that he was half decked out in expensive jewels with Keisuke only turning more mischievous. Keisuke shrugged and opened his fists, letting his findings tumble onto the bed between Ryo's legs.

Cosmetics. Lipstick, rogue, an eyeliner pencil, eye shadow in several colors. All old, all expensive – an older woman's collection.

"What's this Keisuke?"

"My toys. This is my grandmother's room. I used to hide stuff in here because it could soak up the things that weren't... masculine enough. Wouldn't be too weird finding make-up in here, though the gay porn I hid under the mattress might have been a little odd."

Ryo picked up a marbled plastic case, flipped it open and looked at the pink powder inside. "You wore make-up?" He flipped it shut again, browsing through the things Keisuke had found.

The springs bounced as Keisuke slumped back onto the bed, legs crossed and shoulder to shoulder with Ryo. "No. Like I said, I was... well, I wasn't sure how gay I was."

Ryo blinked at him.

"Okay, okay. Look, I only got the most outlandish stories. I didn't hear about guys who just liked guys. They all dressed up like women and went shopping all the time or slept around until they died of horrible gay diseases or... went after little kids. It was always fucked up. I mean, there was this one time my brother was telling me about our uncle who can only have sex if he's wearing lacy stockings..."

Ryo slipped the top off the lipstick, twisting it up and considering it critically.

"Eh, you don't like it?" Keisuke cocked his head watching Ryo with his gray eyes. He was pale and the freckles on his skin stood out, the most obvious inheritance from his western mother besides the hair.

Ryo held it up to Keisuke's skin and made a face. "It's too dark..."

Keisuke stared. "Too dark?" And then he was pressing his lips to the hair behind Ryo's ear and shaking with laughter. "You... I would not have thought... thank you for the expert opinion... oh, aha ha ha haaa..."

Ryo examined the purple color a little more. More pink than violet and more brown than pink. Keisuke calmed down, took it from him, looking it over seriously. "Mmm... too dark is right. S'okay, never wore it out. Never liked the make-up, 'cept for a little bit of eyeliner at a few parties."

Ryo nodded absently.

"Your color'd be good though." Keisuke grinned. Ryo's eyes widened a little in startlement.

"Me?"

"Eh. Hold still." Keisuke's arm went around his shoulders tightly, a futile attempt at pinning him. He lifted the tube, got a little dab on Ryo's upper lip before Ryo smiled in embarrassment, twisting his head away, and messed him up.

"Damnit, Ryo, now you've got a weird line off on your cheek."

"Stockings?" Ryo prompted, rubbing at the lipstick with the back of his hand.

"Eh? Oh, my uncle. No, I don't think he exists. Or, well, even if he did, he was on my Dad's side, meaning he got disowned years ago."

"Disowned?" Ryo had a sudden thought. "Keisuke..." he started, worried.

"What?"

"Are your parents... okay with you?"

Keisuke shrugged, but he also pulled ever so slightly away from Ryo, suddenly uncomfortable. "Yeah, I guess so. I mean, my mom's American. Everybody's gay in America."

"Keisuke..."

"Well," Keisuke admitted, "that's what my grandfather says anyway." He turned over, putting an hand on the other side of Ryo's waist and walked forward on his hands so that Ryo had to gradually fall back onto the bed. "Ne, I think he might be exaggerating a little?"

"Keisuke..."

Keisuke's breath against his lips, a knee between his legs, cosmetics scattered, and then they weren't talking much.


	2. Candlelit Dragon

Disclaimer: Ronin Warriors is not mine, but they have my love.  
Summary: Keisuke and Ryo at a party. Ryo is a dangerous man to have near fire. Specifically tells the story of the scar on Ryo's arm from part six of "Persuasion".  
Warnings: Fear my original character romances. No sex, but somebody says "fuck." My friend tells me this is bizarre.

**Candlelit Dragon**

Jinko dropped them off outside the backdoor, pulling out of the driveway before they could ask her for the host's name because her friend/cousin/girlfriend had called en route asking for more chips and dip.

Keisuke shrugged it off, more used to anonymous friend of a friend of a friend parties at unfamiliar houses than Ryo ever would be. He lead the way inside, turning the doorknob after nothing more than a cursory knock. Ryo followed him, asking if there'd be music. He never remembered the bands, but he liked the volume and the dancing.

"Jinko's friends are witches," Keisuke said, patting at his hair with an absent hand, "Not real, we-are-misunderstood, Wiccan witches, but bored, it-sounds-cool witches."

"What?" Ryo asked, hesitating in the doorway when no one came to greet them or even to tell them to get the fuck out. Either one would have been more... comfortable. "What does that mean?"

"It means no glam rock, Ry. They're probably trying to summon up the dark wraiths of another world. I don't know. Everyone will be high."

Ryo frowned. Keisuke asked what the fuck was up with the expression, but then he said, "Ah, here we go!" as he found the door to the basement. Ryo came the rest of the way into the house, following him down the stairs.

There were candles everywhere, burning brightly among the guests, on the defunct fireplace, on tables and on the floor where they sat on plates to keep the wax off an old brown rug the color of burnt flan. The furniture was surprising commonplace, continuing the color study of over-cooked custard. A more appropriate gothic black had been added in a sheet draped over one of the couches and a few tablecloths under the bowls of snacks and punch.

Sure enough there was a small group of men and women in the middle of the floor trying to raise a demon.

Not all the guests were paying attention, but some were hanging about the edges, offering suggestions about the placement of the participants or the writing on the stylized circle someone had painted on another black sheet spread out beneath the hopeful summoners, most clothed in black, at least one dressed as a Shinto priestess, another in a hasty costume of a Buddhist monk. Everything was spoken with an air of great weight.

A tall woman who had been sitting silently by the circle, her eyes closed in unfathomable wisdom, opened them when Ryo and Keisuke came down the steps. "Oi," she called, "Did you bring the chips?"

Ryo was staring at the candles and the people on the floor with disapproval so Keisuke said, "Jinko's gone for them."

"Alright," the woman said, and seemed to forget they were there.

Keisuke went to the table with the food, returning with an orange paper plate of cookies and the last of the chips and dip. "Hey," he said softly to Ryo, "Let's go find someplace to watch."

Ryo followed reluctantly. "You don't think they're going to do anything with that... thing?" He nodded at the grade school art project the witches were sitting on.

Keisuke pulled him down onto a pile of cushions against the wall. "No, but it could be fun, right?"

"Unless they actually do what they're trying to do," Ryo muttered, leaning back against Keisuke's chest when the other man tugged at his sleeve. He turned his head to the side a little and saw that Keisuke was looking at him oddly. "What?"

"I keep forgetting you're superstitious," Keisuke said. His frown was somehow amused as much as thoughtful.

Ryo stiffened. "I'm not."

"You so completely are. And even if you're _not_, you're into herbal medicine and all that weird grandfather crap so it's the same thing."

Somebody turned up the trance music that had been playing softly in the background. The woman in Shinto robes started chanting something indecipherable.

"What will they do," Ryo asked, "when nothing happens?"

"Nothing. They're going to sit there for a while, probably until Jinko shows up with more food, and it will be some kind of inner spiritual experience for whoever has enough popularity points to do it this week. You can bet one or two will think they've spoken to some higher being. Or lower, if demons are in vogue." He looked down at Ryo, asking, "Are you bored?"

Ryo shrugged, unimpressed by any of it. "Why do they think any of this is going to work? It's a mix of – "

"Popular culture," Keisuke supplied, smiling.

" – that didn't _exist _a decade ago and they want to call ancient power of... of things that they wouldn't survive if they _did_ come. This is so stupid."

Keisuke was looking at him oddly again. "A lot of them are high. That smoke in the corner over there isn't cigarette smoke, and some of them took something more serious before they showed up." He opened his mouth, shut it again.

"What?" Ryo demanded.

"I just... I just realized that you don't think it's not going to work because the whole idea is so absurd it's funny. You think it's not going to work because they're doing it _wrong_."

Ryo hesitated, unable to deny it but thinking he had to. Keisuke shrugged, looking back to the circle of mystics where they sat swaying in time with the music. Candle light glinted off the gold paint of their demon-summoning circle.

"Fed up yet?" Keisuke asked. "We can go – "

He was cut off when somebody in the circle screamed. The gold paint was flaring up in a trail of sparks and flame that scorched the ceiling at the same time the electricity went out.

Ryo stared, shocked into inaction and trapped by Keisuke's embrace.

Except for the meager candlelight, there was nothing to see by but the glare off the flames still growing over the black cloth. Some of the circle members and the guests were shrieking, scrambling back while others stared up at it in awe. Keisuke's arms went deathly tight around Ryo's waist, still too surprised to be horrified at the ball of flame that was twisting slowly in front of them, unfolding into the supple body of a serpent as it extended short flickering limbs with delicate claws of fire.

The dragon's nostrils hissed white steam, coal-black smoke burst and billowed from between the crumbling embers that formed its scales. It lashed out with its burning tail, slashing the painted circle open with a smell of burning cloth, blackening the rug beneath and lighting up the dark room with a sudden flash of flame.

A few more people screamed, some of them running up the stairs to get away. Someone, it looked like the tall woman who'd asked about the chips, tried to hit it with a candle stick, but an explosion of heat and air tossed her back against the wall. The dragon flicked its long whiskers of fire in amusement.

When the intolerable heat hit his face with the breaking of the circle, Ryo did not panic, feeling the power within the creature that was kin to his own. The dragon turned its head in the sudden unpredictable motion of flame, obsidian eyes locking onto Ryo's blue. Its feet touched the ground, winding across the carpet, baring the tiled floor underneath it in a trail of ash.

"Fuck," Keisuke whispered into Ryo's ear, desperate and terrified, "I'm not high." Ryo put out his arm and the dragon, no bigger than house cat, stepped carefully onto it.

Perched there, its claws pinpricks of heat against his skin, the dragon burned softly, the flames licking along his arm but leaving no mark. He felt Keisuke hide his face against Ryo's neck from the heat and the smoke.

The dragon opened its mouth in a puff of steam, revealing gold teeth unmelted by its inner furnace. "My lord, why do you mingle with charlatans?" it asked, the room reverberating with the unreal depth of its voice.

"Oh my god..." Keisuke breathed, lifting his eyes to stare despite the smoke that had turned their whites an angry red. He coughed against Ryo's neck.

"I don't know," Ryo said to the dragon. "They didn't seem like they'd do any harm."

The dragon paused, saying nothing at all just long enough that Ryo knew something was wrong, but by then the dragon's tail was already wrapped tightly around his arm. Suddenly the fire was no longer sparing him but eating, devouring, digging into his flesh like a bright star of hurt and Ryo screamed.

He flung up his other hand because there was suddenly a sword in his fingers, called by his pain, pulling itself into existence and tearing through the brittle core of the dragon's body.

It shrieked now, flames bursting out along the blade, meaning to consume it. But the sword belonged to Wildfire, and instead, the blade consumed the dragon.

Ryo dropped the sword when the lights came back on, the remains of the party scattered, some terrified, others staring at the scorched floor in stoned awe.

"Ryo," Keisuke said, and then when he couldn't think of anything else, "Ryo – Ryo, that was – "

Ryo stood numbly, his burned armed limp at his side. He didn't dare look at it, leaning over instead to blow out two of the candles by the circle before kicking them over on top off the burned rug.

"Ryo," Keisuke insisted again until Ryo stared at him, at a loss. The rest of the people were starting to react, to look like they recognized him as the one the dragon had gone to, had called "My lord," and by whose hand had died.

"You were high," Ryo said.

"High?" Keisuke repeated.

"They spiked the punch. You're still high." He was a horrible liar, saying something so obviously stupid while looking at Keisuke with huge, blue eyes.

"Oh, ok," Keisuke said, dumb. He stared at the katana on the floor. Ryo couldn't remember how to send it back to where it had been, so he picked it up with his good hand before he turned around and went up the stairs.

The kitchen was empty. He put the sword by the sink before he brought up his burned arm to where he could see it. A lot of the skin was gone, grotesque blisters already forming among the blood and char. He swallowed back sickness at the sight of it.

Keisuke came up behind him, staring the burn and at the sword sitting on the counter next to a blue checkered dishrag and a spice rack. "I didn't have any punch," he managed, voice stretched and cracking. Ryo turned to look at him sadly.

"No," he said. "You didn't."


End file.
